1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated circuit package.
2. Description of Related Art
Integrated circuits (ICs) are typically housed in packages that can be mounted to a printed circuit board. One type of integrated circuit package is a plastic pin grid array (PPGA). A typical PPGA package has an inner cavity which contains the integrated circuit and is enclosed by either a lid or an encapsulant material. Within the inner cavity are a plurality of inner bonding pads that are coupled to the IC by wire bonds or a TAB (tape automated bonding) tape. The inner pads are coupled to pins that extend from the outer surface of the package and are connected to the printed circuit board.
The inner bonding pads are typically routed to the pins by vias that couple the pads to an internal conductive layer. Forming vias is a relatively time consuming and expensive process. It would therefore be desirable to provide a PPGA package that can be constructed without using vias.
Integrated circuits are constructed to run at different power levels. For example, integrated circuits used in desktop computers may run on 5 V power supply, while circuits used in laptop computers may run on a 3.3 V power supply. To reduce tooling cost, etc. it would be desirable to provide a single PPGA device that can package various ICs product which operate on different power levels.